M22 and the Wanderers
12.04.2018

Wandering through the constellation Sagittarius, bright planets Mars and Saturn appeared together in early morning skies over the last weeks. They are captured in this 3 degree wide field-of-view from March 31 in a close celestial triangle with large globular star cluster Messier 22.

In the Center of the Lagoon Nebula
4.03.2003

The center of the Lagoon Nebula is busy with the awesome spectacle of star formation. Visible in the lower left, at least two long funnel-shaped clouds, each roughly half a light-year long, have been formed by extreme stellar winds and intense energetic starlight. The tremendously bright nearby star, Hershel 36, lights the area.

NGC 6744: Extragalactic Close Up
25.11.2022

Beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000 light-years across. That's larger than the Milky Way. It lies some 30 million light-years distant in the southern constellation Pavo, with its galactic disk tilted towards our line of sight.

Elliptical Galaxy NGC 1132
13.02.2008

NGC 1132 is one smooth galaxy -- but how did it form? As an elliptical galaxy, NGC 1132 has little dust and gas, and few stars have formed in it recently. Although many elliptical galaxies are in clusters of galaxies, NGC 1132 appears as a large, isolated galaxy toward the constellation of the River (Eridanus).

Northern Fox Fires
12.12.2025

In a Finnish myth, when an arctic fox runs so fast that its bushy tail brushes the mountains, flaming sparks are cast into the heavens creating the northern lights. In fact the Finnish word "revontulet", a name for the aurora borealis or northern lights, can be translated as fire fox.

All the Colors of the Sun
24.06.2007

It is still not known why the Sun's light is missing some colors. Shown above are all the visible colors of the Sun, produced by passing the Sun's light through a prism-like device.

All the Colors of the Sun
27.06.2010

It is still not known why the Sun's light is missing some colors. Shown above are all the visible colors of the Sun, produced by passing the Sun's light through a prism-like device.

The Colorful Clouds of Rho Ophiuchi
14.10.2020

The many spectacular colors of the Rho Ophiuchi (oh'-fee-yu-kee) clouds highlight the many processes that occur there. The blue regions shine primarily by reflected light. Blue light from the Rho Ophiuchi star system and nearby stars reflects more efficiently off this portion of the nebula than red light.

Swirls and Stars in IC 4678
24.05.2005

Swirls of gas and dust enrich this little observed starfield toward the constellation of Sagittarius. Just to the side of the more often photographed Lagoon Nebula (M8) and the Trifid Nebula (M20) lies this busy patch of sky dubbed IC 4678.

APOD: 2025 November 12 Б A Super Lunar Corona
12.11.2025

What are those colorful rings around the Moon? A corona. Rings like this will sometimes appear when the Moon is seen through thin clouds. The effect is created by the diffraction of light around individual, similarly-sized water droplets in an intervening but mostly transparent cloud.